Grocery stores now feature burger fixins at ten bucks a pound

The woman was tall and thin, taller than me, sitting in my Publix e-scooter (top speed 3 m.p.h.) She was dressed for fall -- the Florida afternoon temps hovered in the 70s for the first time. She contemplated the ground beef selection along the store's meat cooler. She grabbed a packet of lean ground beef, looked at it, exhaled loudly, and then handed it to me. "Hamburger -- $10 a pound?" 

I read the label: "Greenwise Lean Ground Beef," below that, a unit price of $9.99.

"Ten dollars a pound," I answered.

She looked at it once more, turned and moved along. 

"Expensive," I muttered to myself. I put it in my cart and begrudgingly added another. Twenty dollars of ground beef. Two nights of hamburgers, a third night for meat loaf with potatoes and carrots, maybe some leftovers for me and my wife. Cheaper than eating out. Last dinner for three at our favorite reasonably-priced Daytona bistro was just under $100. 

My grocery shopping bill was a bit over $300. Coupons and BOGOs saved me $107.45. I could have done without the fancy ice cream and cookies (or could I?). The food should last us ten days.

I am thankful. 

What could I have said to the outraged women at the meat counter? Who did you vote for? Who will you vote for? What kind of vehicle do you put $4.39 fuel into? Do you live alone in a house built for five? Do you gamble? Drink expensive wines? Take ocean cruises? 

What do you say in times such as these? I'm retired. It's expensive out there. We know some of the reasons why. That's why I'm voting for Democrats on Nov. 3. Grocery prices won't immediately drop, nor will gas prices. We still will have a greedy fat cat in the driver's seat for two more years. But we can pump the brakes.

Bulletin: I was ready to post this when news came over the wire that Trump is staging a rally tonight at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach. He is not welcome here. I wonder if I can find my fellow shopper, the woman I ran into in Publix, who was so outraged about $10 a pound ground beef. I could see her at the Ocean Center. She holds up the shiny package of ground beef and yells "HAMBURGER -- TEN DOLLARS A POUND!" The crowd boos Trump. Rides him out of town on a rail. 

Writing conferences can give you a good kick in the you-know-what

A writing conference does several things:

It yanks you out of your inner sanctum and surrounds you with fellow writers.

It sends you back to your inner sanctum loaded with ideas.

I am at step two now. My first step is reviewing my notes and looking over the business cards and bookmarks I collected over the weekend at the Florida Writers Association conference in Orlando. 

First thoughts: I need to rework my business card. And I need bookmarks. Odd thing is, most of my reading is on my Kindle. Kindle has virtual bookmarks but I rarely use them. As I designed my business card before the conference, I came across several design-your-own-bookmark sites. Who needs bookmarks when I have tiny slips of paper, old medical bills, and even business cards to mark my pages? I do, as it turns out. A physical bookmark can contain a world of information on a tidy keepsake.

I have an example. Heidi McIntyre is a book marketing coach, it says it right at the top of the colorful bookmark: “Empowering Authors to Succeed.” Her contact info is below as is a QR code. On the flip side, she features the covers of her books in the Hidden Gems Series: “Sea Magic” and “Dark River Magic.” Below that, is her web site, Facebook and Instagram addresses.

Great info. I am going to order one of her books. I don’t usually read in her categories. “Sea Magic” seems part romance, part fantasy, and part historical novel. The otherworldly romance is based on the legend of the pirate Black Sam Bellamy.

That got my attention.

In a 2008 Forbes article about “Top-Earning Pirates,” Bellamy got the top spot:

The highest-earning pirate ever was Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy, an Englishman who made his bones patrolling the New England coast in the 18th century. By our calculations, "Black Sam" plundered an estimated $120 million over the course of his career. His greatest windfall occurred in February of 1717, when he captured a slave ship called the Whydah, which reportedly held more than four and a half tons of gold and silver. Bellamy, known for his relative generosity, took the Whydah as his new flagship and gave one of his old vessels to the defeated crew.

Black Sam never got a chance to spend his newfound wealth. He, his ship, and its booty were lost in a gale off the U.S. coast. 

This takes me back to McIntyre’s novel. I bought it and will read it because the history captured me. It’s not too jaded to assume that the romance also won’t capture me.

To conclude, I met a writer at a writing conference. Her info took me to her web site and to several hours reading about pirates. I did attend several book-marketing sessions conducted by the author and they were very informative, but it was the pirate that hooked me.

It took me ten years to write a novel and get it published. It came out in May and I sold a few but after that, crickets. I have been remiss in marketing. One writing conference didn’t give me all the answers but it blazed a path for me. Now my sails are set.

Wish me fair winds and following seas.

Army hospital history in Colorado is celebrated by the World War 2 Heritage Cities Program

9News in Denver featured a story yesterday about Aurora, its suburb to the east. The National Park Service has named Aurora as one of its American World War II Heritage Cities. The story included mentions of Lowry AFB (my brother Pat trained there), Buckley National Guard base now a Space Force unit, and Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, closed in 1996.

Fitzsimons is the entity that I know best. My paternal grandmother served there as a nurse, 1919-1922, after returning from duty in France 1918-1919. She met my grandfather along the way. He was a cavalry officer who had returned from the trenches with pneumonia and the after-effects of poison gas. 

Aerial view of Fitzsimons Army Medical Center circa 1973. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

The 9News story says that Fitzsimons opened just a few days before WW2. Not true. In a strange quirk of army planning, the hospital was begun before the U.S. entry into the Great War and completed in time for the 1918 armistice. It was the center for tuberculosis treatment and also treated patients of the Spanish Flu which did not begin in Spain but most likely entered the world at a U.S. Army Base in Kansas, Camp Funston at Fort Riley, and spread through the world. This is just one likely scenario posited by epidemic researchers.

Aurora's Army General Hospital 21 was renamed Fitzsimons Army Hospital in 1920 after Lt. Fitzsimons, the first U.S. medical officer to die in the Great War. It's specialty was lung patients, those with TB or had sustained lung damage during gas attacks. 

I know a bit about era because I wrote the book, a historical novel titled Zeppelins Over Denver. I spent many hours reading about The Great War and its aftermath, especially in Colorado, my home place. I was born there in 1950 and have lived many other places since, but claim Denver as my home. It's terrific to see the World War 2 years celebrated by the National Park Service, an agency that's been under attack since January of 2023. Face it -- mistakes are made, facts sometimes can be wrong. As a writer and editor, I've made a few along the way. 

In this age of lies and deceit from high places, the right stuff is important. I have fond memories of watching 9,7, and 4 news during my adult years in Denver, 1978-88, and later Fort Collins, 1988-1991. Those Denver channels used to reach me over the Wyoming border, courtesy of cable. Bad news travels fast. I'm talking about you, Rockies, on MLB.com. We hope new leadership gets you out of the cellar.

One other thing. As you read my novel and find mistakes, please let me know. Some things are facts and some are fiction.

Kindle Unlimited Publishing secrets unlocked, sort of

As I mentioned in my Oct. 9 blog post, I had been stymied getting the ebook of Zeppelins Over Denver up on Amazon. Something wouldn't let me through the Amazon shield. That turned out to be my own inability to see the problem right in front of me. Yesterday I was successful. Both my print version and ebook are available. I would love it if you ordered the print version, now priced at $25.50. Free shipping if you have an account and order as many necessities as I do. Just throw in the book and along comes a fine story along with a month's supply of TP (hurricane season, you know), a six-pack of Del Monte Cherry Mixed Fruit Cups (loaded with Vitamin C!), gigantic Tylenol canisters (for html coding headaches), and those screwy little bulbs that look like jellyfish but brightly light my stovetop.

I have to mention that the Zeppelins ebook is only $9.99 and available in the blink of an eye. It also is available for free on Kindle Unlimited. 

I have read more than one book from Kindle Unlimited and I also dnf some KU choices. Right now, lucky customers can download two new ebook releases for free. I selected two. I chose Ghost Orchid by Dani Cessna and finished it yesterday. The Everglades National Park setting appealed to me, the main characters are National Park Service employees and one aging orchid thief who receives messages from plants. She carries a gun called Harriet. A hurricane appears as does a murder. The author spent 18 years working for the NPS, a reminder of the fine murder mysteries written by one-time park employee Nevada Barr. 

I almost dnf Ghost Orchid. Right around the 60-percent-read mark, I tired of one of the characters. Miranda's fiance, Clay, was getting on my last nerve. I stopped reading for a day but was drawn back, possibly by one of the Glades orchids. I read on and found that the author takes care of the issue and moves on. I won't say how (was Harriet involved?). But reading Cessna's author's note, I found praise for her "superhuman critique partner...who taught me the most about plot structure and narrative tension." She obviously learned the lesson when it came to Clay. 

I am a long-time member of a critique group. One of my superhuman colleagues recently critiqued the first section of my second novel and caught something very important missing from my story. Thanks, Liz. 

I remind you that you can also buy my ebook on most of the major platforms. I mention one in particular, Bookshop, because some of its income goes to local bookstores. There are many in Florida. One I like is Cafe Resistance Bookstore in Jacksonville. It's co-owned by Angie Nixon who intends to replace the GOPer Know Nothing Ashley Moody who now is one of our two worthless U.S. senators. Ms. Nixon would be so much better at governing. And she sells our books. 

What are you waiting for? Go get a book. Bring Kindle with you when you vote. There may be a line.

In Evergreen, Naomi Hirahara explores post-war L.A. and recommends Chester Himes

“I heartily recommend that readers check out the novels of Chester Himes.” 

That’s what Naomi Hirahara writes in her extensive author’s notes at the end of “Evergreen,” about Nisei returning from the World War Two internment camps to a changed L.A. "Evergreen" is the sequel to Hirahara's excellent "Clark & Division." Himes’ books play a role in Hirahara’s novel set in post-war Los Angeles. 

You can read more about Himes in James Sallis’ deeply detailed biography, “Chester Himes: A Life” I’ve read Sallis novels “Drive” and “Bluebottle” but plan on finding “Difficult Lives, Hitching Rides: Essays on Noir,” exploring writers like Himes and Jim Thompson. I brought Sallis to Wyoming a couple decades ago to work with student writers. 

Hirahara's author's notes are always lengthy and detailed. In "Evergreen," she recommends books on the the era's African-American presence in L.A. She suggests Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration,” “Snapshots” from the Community Writers Group of Los Angeles, and Chuck Haddix’s “Bird: The Life and Music of Charlie Parker.” 

I added them all to my reading list. As is the case with many writers, L.A. has a hold on me through books and movies. The crime novels of Raymond Chandler, Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley, and James Ellroy. Other writers, such as the almost-forgotten Jon Fante, black-listed Dalton Trumbo, and poet/mailman Charles Bukowski. (Editor's note: Fante and Trumbo, two troublemakers with Colorado roots). The poems of Wanda Coleman, often called "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles," always hit me in the gut. There are other writers as well as musicians such as Bird and the many rockers who have come and gone. The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Dr. Dre, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc. And “Chinatown,” that lovely, sorrowful movie. 

"Evergreen" is a compelling mystery. I learned about the many injustices inflicted upon U.S. citizens yanked from their homes and schools and shops in Los Angeles for winters behind barbed wire in placed such as Heart Mountain, Wyoming, which I have visited many times. People in Wyoming, such as the late Sen. Alan Simpson of Cody, supported the building of a museum on the site, a museum which duplicates one of the camp's wooden barracks. Simpson and internee and late congressman and secretary of transportation U.S. Senator Norman Mineta were Boy Scouts during the war, Simpson finding a way for the Scouts to work together, inside and outside the wire.

Hirahara also explores the Nisei who served as U.S. soldiers in Italy during the war. Many were killed. Some returned with severe cases of PTSD, which also figures in the book's plot. 

I have “The Real Cool Killers” on my desk. Published in 1959 by Berkeley Medallion, a 50-cent paperback that a second-hand store marked down to 35. It’s the kind you can slip into your pocket. The cover shows Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones chasing a scantily-clad woman. They are all running somewhere down L.A.’s mean streets, some of which take you to the beach and some to certain death. That’s the cool thing, isn’t it? You can say mean streets and New York City in the same breath. But it’s such a weird juxtaposition with sunny, glossy L.A. I hear Beach Boys’ “Surf City” at the same time “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown” rolls like an angry wave through my memory. 

Nomads from THE NOMAD gather in Utah Oct. 13

Some of my fellow writers featured in The Nomad Literary Magazine will be reading from their work Oct. 13 at the Utah Humanities Book Festival. The event is 6-7:30 p.m. at the Utah Cultural Celebration Center in West Valley located on the western fringe of SLC. My work is featured in several issues of The Nomad, edited by Rachel White and based in Bountiful. One of my favorite stories set in Wyoming, "George Running Poles," is in the "Breakthroughs" issue. I won't be at the reading as I will be getting myself and my books ready for the upcoming Florida Writers Association conference in Orlando. Would I rather be in Utah? Well, the Wasatch Front is gorgeous in October. Sending my regards to all Nomads.

Zeppelins Over Denver ebook now available on some platforms

The ebook edition of Zeppelins Over Denver is now available on the following platforms for $9.99:

Bookshop

Tolino

Smashwords

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Fable

Apple

Vivlio

Coming soon: Hoopla, for all of us library folks.

I am still trying to unlock the secret of getting the ebook on Amazon and Ingram Spark. Amazon is the site for Kindle where I buy and read most ebooks (just snagged two free ebooks on Bookshop during its promo the day before Amazon started the fall sales blitz). I filled out the form for Amazon a few weeks ago but nothing so far. I uploaded to Ingram, the company that prints my book, but keep getting error messages. Anybody had any problems at these places?

I used Draft2Digital to format my ebook for other platforms. Worked like a charm. Recommended. Thanks to my critique group pal Liz for sending me to D2D. Meet her and other Cheyenne, WY, area writers at the Laramie County Public Library book bash Saturday, Oct. 10, 2-4 p.m. 

Ebooks are important because some 75 percent of all books are bought this way. Before cataract surgery, I read ebooks so I could enlarge the type in dark mode on my K-Reader, or I snagged large print books at the library. Post-surgery, I have laser vision and can read War & Peace at 50 paces. I won't -- read it in grad school. 

Author royalties tend to be a bit better for ebooks. Electrons cheaper than paper and ink and mailing.

Keep reading!